


But You Remind Me That, It's Such a Wonderful Thing To Love

by Radiday



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 11:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15684510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiday/pseuds/Radiday
Summary: it’s such a mess, he says, I’m so sorry.Or, the immediate aftermath of Fred waking up in 2x01.





	But You Remind Me That, It's Such a Wonderful Thing To Love

**Author's Note:**

> A result of not being able to sleep last night. 
> 
> Also, because Fred was way too familiar with meetings in that season 2 deleted scene. 
> 
> Also also, can I ever write about anything else besides Fred getting shot?
> 
> Title from Patricia, by Florence and the Machine.

_Son, that’s why I came back. To protect you._

It’s the first full sentence he says and the longest one he’ll say for the next three days.

They’ve just taken the tube out, the one that went down his throat because he couldn’t fucking  _breath_ on his own. They tell him to cough,  _keep coughing, Fred, it’ll come out,_ and all he can think is that they don’t know,  _they don’t understand how much this hurts._

The next thing he says is  _Pop_ ,  _Is Pop okay_ , because Pop has to be okay. Pop’s immortal.

 _Yeah_ , Archie says, Fred’s hand in his, feeling everything and nothing and then some.  _Nobody else got hurt. Everyone’s okay._

Truth be told, Archie hadn’t even thought of Pop. Hadn’t even thought that Fred got shot  _in Pop’s_ , that Pop and Marlene the waitress had watched as it happened, that Pop was left on his own to mop up Fred’s blood.

He suddenly feels guilt on top of everything else, but then his dad lets out a groan and nothing else matters anymore.

He groans again, eyes shut, squeezing Archie’s hand to make sure that he really  _was_ there, that this wasn’t some coma dream that ends with his son’s death.

He lets himself drift away when he feels Archie squeeze back.

Fred wakes up again in the middle of the night when the nurse comes to switch out his IV bag. She smiles at him gently, because the nurses are nice to you when you get shot. And they’re even nicer to you when you’re Fred fucking Andrews.

She asks if he’s in pain, if he wants more morphine, and he nods, because it’s all he can manage. Because getting shot  _hurts_.

The nurse pushes the morphine pump and lays a gentle hand on his arm and whispers something about getting some rest and suddenly she’s gone, vanished into thin air.

Maybe this is a dream too, Fred thinks.

He doesn’t stay awake long enough to find out.

Later, when he’s more coherent, he’ll deny more pain medication, because he’s totted the line of alcoholism once, back when Artie died and FP left for the Army, back when he was suddenly left with a life he didn’t really want.

He’s been to just enough meetings to know that having one addiction increases the chance of developing another. He took FP at first, sat with him silently with his fingers drumming on FP’s knee.

He goes again, alone, after FP’s gone, still doesn’t say anything. Nobody bats an eyelash, because they’ve seen Fred before. For all they know he’s been an addict this whole time.

When he’s more coherent, he’ll think about how young they were, barely seventeen, when FP came to him and said he needed help. He’ll think about how they were just one year older than their own children are now. He’ll will the universe to not let his kids grow up as fast as he did.

Except Archie just held him in his arms while he lay dying, so there’s that.

The kids feel more worried, more panicked, now, than when Fred was in surgery, because Fred can barely string two words together, can barely identify who’s in the room, can barely keep his eyes open.

That Fred scares them. Scares Archie to his core. Makes him pray his mother gets here faster, sooner, because he can’t do this. Not by himself.

He’s not alone, though, because he’s got Betty and Jug and Veronica. Their parents too. Well, not Hiram Lodge, because he’s in prison, and not FP Jones, because he’s in jail, and Archie can’t understand how his dad was ever friends with these people.

 _These people_ turn out to care a lot about Fred. FP, at least. Jughead stops by the jail and tells him, chooses his words carefully, because he knows FP and Fred were friends back in the day, maybe more. That’s his suspicion anyway.

FP clenches a fist and looks at Jughead, steely eyed and afraid all at the same time.  _Has he woken up?_ he asks.  _Is he awake, Jug?_

That’s how Jughead knows he cares, because FP hasn’t referred to his son by anything other than  _boy_ in years, and suddenly he’s all  _is he awake, Jug?_ Jughead says  _yeah, he’s awake. He’ll be okay._

But he’s not awake, not really. After Fred wakes up for the first time, Jughead sets up camp with Archie, making a makeshift bed out of old, nylon hospital chairs. He’s slept on worst.

Fred looks at Jughead, or looks through Jughead, eyes unfocused and half-open. He asks  _are you okay, are you okay, are you hurt?_

And Jughead squeezes his hand, unsure if Fred really knows who he’s talking to, and says  _yes, I’m fine, Mr. A. Nobody else got hurt._

The answer satisfies him, because he blinks a few times,  _open, shut, open, shut,_ before his eyes don’t open again.

* * *

That same day, Betty brings coffee, because Archie needs coffee. (What he really needs is sleep, but he’s made it clear that won’t happen. Not until Fred’s more coherent.) She finds her mother in waiting room, pacing in the corner, heels clicking rhythmically.

She finds her father sitting in a chair, leg shaking to match Alice’s steps.

 _Who’s she talking to? s_ he asks, giving her dad a coffee from the carrier.

He takes a sip and says  _Mrs. Andrews._  

_But Archie already called his mom._

_The other Mrs. Andrews_ , Hal says, eyes glued to his wife, moving back and forth and back and forth.  _Fred’s mom._

Fred’s mom.

Betty forgot Fred had a mom. (That’s not entirely true, she knows everybody  _has_ a mom. She’s even met Archie’s grandma.) But that’s all she was. Archie’s grandma. She’d forgotten that Archie’s grandma and Fred’s mom were the same person. She can’t imagine Fred being parented, being a child, being a baby that needed to be fed and bathed and rocked to sleep.

Fred’s the kind of person that seems like he was born an adult. Like he’d never been a ten-year-old t-ball player, or a rebellious teenager. He seems like the kind of person that was just born with a lifetime’s worth of wisdom in his back pocket.

She wonders what it’s like, to be the mother of someone that got shot. Not that she wants to find out, obviously, but she can’t help but think.

She’s seen it from Archie’s perspective, no matter how hard she tries not to. She can imagine what it would be like to have a parent get hurt.

She went to elementary school with a kid whose dad died while fighting a fire. They made him cards in school. She wonders who’ll send Fred a card.

But she’s never been a parent, can’t imagine what it’s like to love someone that much, unconditionally, from the day they’re born.

She’s not even sure her own parents know what that’s like. But she knows Fred Andrews does. She imagines his parents know the feeling too.

So she tries to put herself is Mrs. Andrews’ shoes. To be halfway across the country and be told that you’re only living child has been shot in the very diner you’d been taking him to since he was three weeks old.

She can’t do it.

She suddenly sees Veronica in the corner of her eye, and she’s never been so grateful, because she wants out of this headspace and out of this hospital and she just wants Fred to  _get better now._

But he can’t, because that’s not how getting shot works, no matter how many televisions shows make it seem that way.

Veronica’s holding a brown paper bag, clutching it close to her chest like it’s her only friend in the world.

 _It’s for Mr. A_ , she says.  _Since we couldn’t find his wallet._

Fred’ll like it, Veronica thinks. Not that Fred’s ever been one for gifts. She remembers Archie complaining that shopping for his dad’s birthday present is near impossible.

 _I’ve already got everything I could ever want_ , Fred always say.

She wonders if he’ll still feel that way, after everything. After they’d pulled another red-headed teenager’s bloated body out of Sweetwater River, after Geraldine Grundy or Jennifer Gibson or  _whatever_ her fucking name was got banished from town.

Once, back in New York, she’d been followed down her block and gotten her purse stolen. She didn’t feel safe for months.

She wonders if Fred will ever feel safe in this town again.

Jughead pokes his head out of Fred’s room, just enough so they can see his how tired he looks, as tired as they feel.  _He’s asking about you guys_ , he says, voice low and gravely,  _if you wanna come in._

She doesn’t, not really. She doesn’t know what to say, or how to act. She’s never been around someone in a hospital bed, never been around someone that’s gotten shot. But Betty’s already at the door, looking back, face saying  _aren’t you coming_ , so she goes.

Fred looks at her and Betty, eyelids being kept open by sheer willpower, a sleepy smile on his face. He asks if they’re okay, because that’s what he’s asked everybody that’s come into the room, because he has to know. He has to.

 _Yes_ , Betty says. Veronica just nods, keeps her distance from Fred and from Archie, because she doesn’t know how to  _do_ this.

Fred doesn’t know how to do this either, but he’s so high on morphine it really doesn’t matter.

Betty settles into an empty chair, but Veronica stays close to the wall, close to the door, close to a way out in case it gets too hard.

She thinks that Fred is definitely the last person this should have happened to, not only because she’s fairly certain he’s never harmed anyone in his life, but because she’s yet to meet someone that hates attention more than Fred Andrews.

Later, when he’s feeling better, well enough to sit up, he’ll look around his room and ask the kids where all the cards and flowers came from, and they’ll go through them, listing off everything from Riverdale Elementary School to the owners of the hardware store over in Greendale he frequents.

His crew will find out, showing up at the hospital in waves, demanding to see their boss, demanding to know why they weren’t informed sooner.

Hal and Hermione will try to calm them down kindly before Alice attempts with her parse words. Archie will come out, drawn by the noise, from the room where he’s spent the last 48 hours holding his father’s hand, with sunken eyes and a blood-stained cast, and suddenly the riot calms. Archie apologizes for not calling them but it’s just been such a mess,  _it’s such a mess_ , he says,  _I’m so sorry._

That shuts Fred’s crew up faster than anything Alice could have said.

When Fred’s able to hold a conversation, he’ll turn down Alice’s request for a statement for the Register, turn down the local news’ request for an interview. He’ll ask Archie and his friends to do the same.

But for now, Fred lays back, head shifting on the pillow slightly, one hand thumbing the covers, the other clutching Archie’s.

 _You’re okay_ , he says again, looking lazily at each one of them. Nobody’s sure if it’s a question or a statement.

 _Yes_ , Archie says anyways.  _Go to sleep, it’s okay. Everybody’s fine._

* * *

The next day, before Fred becomes aware enough to push the morphine pump, he reaches out to Archie desperately and says  _it hurts, Arch, it hurts_ , and Archie makes it two steps out the door before he completely loses it.

Jughead finds him, tearstains on his face, and sits with him silently on the floor until Archie feels like he can pull himself together.

Alice and Hermione show up, ordering the kids to go home and get some sleep _. You can stay at our house_ , Alice will say to Archie. Archie can’t believe his ears.

The two adults sit there in silence until Fred wakes up, until he calls Hermione ‘Mione’ and Alice ‘Allie,’ and they feel like they’re all friends in high school again. Alice calls him ‘Frederick’ and for a moment, everything’s okay.

FP shows up while the kids are out, rapping on the door, meeting Alice’s and Hermione’s eyes. They share a look before they get up, leaving FP and a sleeping Fred alone _. He’s in and out_ , Hermione says.  _But he’ll be glad you’re here._

FP spends the first thirty minutes studying every feature on Fred’s face. The wrinkles that didn’t used to be there, the lines that did. Watches his chest rise and fall and listens to the machines beep and wonders how this could’ve happened and how he wasn’t there and if he could just get his hands on the son of a bitch that did this…

But Fred wakes up before he can get too riled up, squeezing his hand and mumbling out  _so you didn’t do it_ even though he already knows the answer because Fred  _knows_ FP, even now.

FP laughs but doesn’t answer, because he knows Fred knows, and instead runs his thumb up and down Fred’s hand.  _I was worried_ , FP says.  _Jug didn’t tell me much._

 _‘M gonna be fine_ , Fred slurs, eyelids drooping already.

 _Yeah you are, Freddy,_ FP says, tears pooling in his eyes.  _You always are._

For years, FP thought Fred had discovered the magical algorithm for getting though life without any help from anybody. He’d always seem to have it together, even when his brother died, when his dad got sick, when Mary left…

They hadn’t been speaking by then, but he admired from afar.

He remembers a conversation they’d had years ago, when he’d told Fred he was joining the Army _. I’m no good for you_ , FP had said.  _It’s better this way._

 _It’s not,_ Fred pleaded _. I need you. We need each other._  Pleading turned to anger.  _You’d be good for me if you’d show up! Show up, FP!_

It’s an argument they’d had before, that FP was here but never really  _here_. FP blamed it on his South Side roots. Always gotta be prepared, planning the next move.

Fred was right, in the end. He always was. It cost him Fred, cost him his marriage. May have even cost him his children.

He looks at Fred, sleeping, having nearly lost his life less that 48 hours ago.  _I’m here_ , he says.  _I’m here now._

Fred doesn’t answer.  _I love you_ , FP tries, as if that’ll magically wake him up.

FP tries not to think about how much it stings that he doesn’t hear it back.

After a moment, he feels pressure when his hand sits slipped into Fred’s, so he looks down, sees Fred’s eyes open in slits, barely hanging on to consciousness.

Fred squeezes his hand,  _one, two, three._

It’s what they used to do, back when they were young, when they had to be discreet, when they couldn’t afford to show any kind of affection in public. Three squeezes on the knee or the shoulder, a message that nobody else could see.

_I love you._


End file.
